The American peace proposal for Ukraine is deficient, but the EU proposal is an absolute farce, which is clearly just an attempt to stall for time and buy breathing space for Ukraine to rearm.

“Deficiencies” and “smokescreens” are the terms that most accurately describe Western proposals

I was already suspicious when I heard that the United States had floated a 28-point peace plan (Trump has to grandstand and do twice as many points as Woodrow Wilson’s 14-point plan). The American plan, to a large extent, speaks for itself. Certain points are immediately recognized as reasonable, such as ? 1, 2, and 3.

Other points are immediately recognized as absurdities, such as ? 6. Ukraine has no legitimate reason to maintain an armed force the size of 600,000 men (note the EU proposal is 800,000 strong). Keep in mind these Western powers wanted to limit Germany to 100,000 men in 1919, and Germany had almost three times the population in 1919 that Ukraine has now, and Germany had significant internal threats that Ukraine simply doesn’t have. Ukraine of 2025 does not need an armed force in excess of 200,000, and even that is being generous and erring on the side of excessiveness. 600,000 is absurd, and 800,000 is just a blatant plan for future aggression and provocation against Russia.

In the US plan, it is articulated, “If Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid,” which is dangerous to the extent of the ambiguity and the loophole created by the term “without cause.” Who decides if Ukraine has “cause” to launch missiles at Moscow or St. Petersburg? Also, why only Moscow and St. Petersburg? Does this mean the West is giving a future Ukrainian administration carte blanche to launch a missile at Smolensk, Rostov, or Krasnodar because those aren’t Moscow or St. Petersburg?

Will they even need cause to undertake such launches? The ban on launching missiles at Moscow or St. Petersburg “without cause” while moving in the right direction, is inadequate on its own; Ukraine must be categorically prohibited from launching projectiles into Russia, whether those projectiles are missiles, rockets, howitzer shells, or mortar bombs, regardless of the target.

Point 11 in the US plan is particularly dangerous: “Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will receive short-term preferential access to the European market while this issue is being considered.” This is dangerous precisely because the EU is basically “NATO Light.” It is like a filtered low-tar “light” cigarette. If you told your teenage son not to smoke and he is “only smoking” light cigarettes, that would be unlikely to satisfy you because it violates your instruction. The EU is basically NATO Light. Ukraine should not join NATO, and Ukraine should not join the EU.

The heart of this proposal begins around Point 14 where the US makes it clear that Russia is not actually getting its frozen funds back, but the money can be invested in American led projects, like a worker being paid company script in the company town he lives in, with the script only being accepted at the company store.

When compared and contrasted with the Euro proposal, it is obvious that the Europeans are playing “bad cop” to the American “good cop.” In the end, both proposals contain numerous points that are bad for Russian interests and unacceptable for Russia, but the American plan is “less bad” and appears reasonable in comparison to the transparent absurdity of the European plan.

Reuters has placed the Euro plan behind a subscription paywall, and I am not inclined to give any money to Western corporate media. A side-by-side comparison of the US and Euro proposals is available by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, which, although it is an organization I consider untrustworthy and whose analysis is not to be trusted because it is a war hawk propagandist so-called “think tank,” the actual 28 points as stated, appear to be accurate reflections of what the American and Euro proposals consist of. Anything else on their website should be considered extremely suspect. I personally consider the CSIS to be a dangerous organization of subversive globalists who are advancing an agenda of Anti-Civilization. But they have published both the Euro and US proposals.

From the EU Proposal

The European proposal entails Ukraine de facto joining NATO without de jure joining NATO, although this possibility remains for the future.

? 5. Ukraine will receive robust Security Guarantees.

? 6. The size of the Ukrainian military is to be capped at 800,000 in peacetime. (The US plan stipulated a 600,000-person limit regardless of war or peace.)

? 7. Ukraine joining NATO depends on the consensus of NATO members, which does not exist. (The US plan proposed that Ukraine constitutionally renounce NATO membership and that NATO formally commit to never admitting Ukraine.)

? 8. NATO agrees not to permanently station troops under its command in Ukraine in peacetime. (The US plan required a blanket ban on any NATO “forces” in Ukraine; the Europeans appear to leave room for the Coalition of the Willing.)

? 10. US guarantee that mirrors Article 5 (concerning Ukraine’s security)

The West wants to allow Ukraine to maintain 800,000 military personnel, receive quasi-Article 5 guarantees, and allow NATO to station troops in Ukraine if it decides that “peace has broken down,” while leaving the door open for Ukraine to join NATO in the future if there is a NATO consensus at some point. None of those terms are conducive to actual peace or will allow for a viable, sustained peace.

It is apparent to me that what is going on is the EU is trying to appear reasonable while being unreasonable; they want to foment a deeper conflict, or at best cause a frozen conflict, and buy the Kiev Maidan Coup Regime 3-4 years to rebuild, rearm, and hopefully ride out the rest of Trump’s term and see him replaced with a war-hawk neo-con more amenable to absurd escalation in Donbas.

On the other hand, it is also possible the EU is playing a role, as I alluded to earlier, as “the bad cop” to the US “good cop.”

In the practice of law, I call it the “art of being unreasonable while appearing reasonable” or “setting up the shot for another to take.” It is a scenario whereby one lawyer on a team adopts a harsh and overly unreasonable position, one that is almost transparently or outright transparently unreasonable (but is presented as being made in good faith), while his colleague adopts a more conciliatory position but one still favourable to the interests of their mutual client. The positions are then presented to the opponent, who is given the illusion of choice of choosing between two alternatives as they are presented to him. In human psychology, there is a tendency to pick between such options when things are presented and framed that way.

In the end it is a cheap, basic psychological manipulation technique that would likely work on a small-town businessman in a legal dispute or on a hoodlum being questioned by police and being presented with the hard-boiled detective threatening him with 10 years in prison and the friendly, grandfatherly lieutenant who is “a few months from retirement” and who “just wants to close the lid on this case” and tells the young crook to “set the record straight and help yourself out; you’ll be out of jail in a few months.”

But these sorts of clumsy Western games are unlikely to work on seasoned Russian diplomats and statesmen. I stand by my earlier remarks and the outline I detailed for how to achieve peace between the West and Russia. It is very simple. It is so simple a lawyer who is not a credentialed professional diplomat could do it.

But such a peace framework as I propose has to occur within the context of actually desiring peace, and not merely seeking to “pause” a conflict to resume it later at a future date when the situation is more favourable to the ambitions of the forces of Western and globalist subversion.

What do I expect the West would do with a frozen conflict? Sit on their hands for a few years, and then when there is an administrative power transition in Russia from President Putin to a fellow Russian patriot who is elected to continue to steer the ship of state in the continuity of the course charted by President Putin, the West would pounce, suddenly unfreeze the conflict in Ukraine, and cause a foreign crisis right on Russia’s frontier at the moment of a delicate passing of the torch from one generation to the next in Moscow. Because it would be the clever move, the exact way a schemer would scheme, and it makes sense for the West to do that if you understand their long-term motivation and goals.

President Putin, a true statesman, has achieved much for Russia, and will continue to do so for perhaps another 7-15 years; I don’t know exactly how many years. I wish him good health and longevity and many more years. He is a true treasure of traditional civilization and masculine leadership in a world filled with empty suits, weaklings, and cowards.

But at some point, he will pass the torch to a man who will have been judged by the Russian people to be a worthy heir to bear that torch and to hold the reins of state power in Moscow. If a frozen conflict exists in Ukraine, the West will seize this moment to at a minimum try to spark a colour revolution in Moscow and fragment the Russian state, and will probably unfreeze the Ukrainian conflict at the same time.

Ever since the West violated the agreement with Gorbachev not to expand NATO to the East, the West has lost a lot of credibility, and it seems even today they can’t even make offers in good faith.

The US proposal leaves much to be desired and might be seen as an invitation for negotiations and discussions. The EU proposal is a farce unworthy of a response; it is either a “bad cop” game or it is just desperation by irrelevant, worn-out former Great Powers who want to seem relevant but who really don’t matter. At the end of the day, the UK, France, and Germany really don’t matter, although they are legends in their own minds.

At any rate, beware of westerners bearing gifts, and these proposals don’t even look like gifts; they seem very self-serving and deceitful.

Bryan Anthony Reo is a licensed attorney based in Ohio and an analyst of military history, geopolitics, and international relations. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2025/11/29/beware-of-westerners-bearing-gifts/